-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- What do NSA leaker Edward Snowden and a red panda at the National Zoo in Washington have in common ? Absolutely nothing . Except that both mysteriously vanished . And both were the subjects of high-profile searches -- at least for a little while , in the case of the panda .

But a little while was all Twitter needed to engage in a flurry of jokes , including the creation of several parody accounts for Rusty , the red panda .

There were a few , tenuous parallels .

Both are male . Both are relatively young -- Rusty is 1 , Snowden is 30 . And both have connections to China : Red pandas are native to southwestern China while Snowden recently traveled to Hong Kong , off southeastern China .

OK , perhaps that last one is a bit of a stretch . But social media transcends all boundaries .

@InvisibleObama tweeted , `` Somewhere , Edward Snowden is stroking a Red Panda laughing at us all . ''

@BCAppelbaum posted , `` Since China wo n't hold on to Snowden , we 're going to start releasing panda bears . ''

First reported missing at 8 a.m. Monday , Rusty was finally captured around 2:30 p.m. about a mile away from his enclosure , zoo officials posted to Facebook .

The zoo had tweeted several facts about Rusty , warning zoo visitors that he is still a wild animal and would bite if cornered or scared . The search began inside the zoo since red pandas are known to be territorial .

For at least a few hours , Rusty 's whereabouts proved as intriguing to many as Edward Snowden 's .

Snowden made news recently for releasing information about secret surveillance programs conducted by the National Security Administration . He initially fled to Hong Kong . Russian officials confirmed he had flown to Moscow over the weekend . Although WikiLeaks claims to know his exact location , no one else seems sure . His reserved seat aboard a plane to Cuba was reportedly empty .

The United States has publicly announced it is seeking to extradite Snowden on charges of espionage and theft of government property . No such announcement was made regarding Rusty .

`` Operation Rusty : Washington engages in another frantic search , '' read the headline to the Washington Wire post .

`` Now Putin has a Super Bowl ring , Ed Snowden AND a red panda , '' tweeted @MicahGrimes . Putin has been accused by the owner of the New England Patriots of taking his Super Bowl ring during a visit .

Although parody accounts have come under fire recently as being unnecessary and lacking humor , @RustyThePanda was undeterred . `` Is there bamboo in Ecuador ? '' it asked . Its Twitter bio also included being a fan of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald , who broke the Snowden story . Greenwald , presumably busy with other things , had not tweeted anything panda-related at the time of this writing .

Some tweets appeared to confuse red pandas with the black-and-white giant pandas , also called panda bears . Red pandas look more like a cross between a raccoon and a small fox . Both enjoy a good meal of bamboo , however .

This is n't the first escaped zoo animal to inspire an attention-getting parody account . In 2011 @BronxZoosCobra chronicled the seven-day imagined adventures of the escaped snake . That account amassed 187,533 followers and still tweets . In response to Rusty 's escape it on Monday it posted , `` I have an alibi ! ''

The @NationalZoo account thanked its fans on Twitter and Facebook for helping recover Rusty . No word if @BarackObama will do the same when Snowden is officially located .

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Rusty the Panda went missing from the National Zoo

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Twitter erupts with jokes about the vanishing acts of Ed Snowden and Rusty

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Rusty is found about a mile from the zoo ; Snowden is n't